IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine - Q2 2023 - 5

Prof. Kang: I had a good fortune in having many meetings
and getting to know late Jack Kilby who was a distinguished
alumnus of the UIUC. He received a Nobel prize
in December 2000 for inventing an integrated circuit first
in 1958. In his acceptance speech, he said " In 1958 my
goals were simple: to lower the cost, simplify the assembly,
and to make things smaller and more reliable. " One
of the great challenges in the 21st century engineering is
to reverse engineer the brain, especially since the brain
is the most energy-efficient in information processing.
I believe memristor-based integrated systems can approach
the scale of the brain, in particular the physical
size of 2400 cm2 surface area, about 20 W power consumption,
and processing in memory. It is quite encouraging
to see that chip fabrication houses such as TSMC
are offering hybrid CMOS-memristors chips. If Moore's
law can be held for this technology, more energy-efficient
AI hardware can be commercially available in the
near future. Many impressive hybrid CMOS-memristor
results have been reported for IOT applications, but
much more needs to be done. A critical key for industrial
success would be high yield, low cost, and reliability.
Question 4: In addition to being a researcher, you are
also an inventor and entrepreneur. For instance,
you hold 16 U.S. patents, has won numerous awards
for your groundbreaking achievements in the field
of electrical engineering, and co-founded a fabless
mobile memory chip design company named ZTI.
Can you share your experience on how to make
your work commercialized and some of the key lessons
you learned from this experience?
Prof. Kang: Most patents are outcomes of pioneering
research projects in AT&T Bell Laboratories and
at the UIUC with my former graduate students who
have worked on low-power CMOS and optoelectronic
circuit innovations, hot-carrier reliability, ESD
and electromigration (EM) reliability, and optical
interconnects using photonic devices. The project,
Illinois Pulsar-switch based Optical INTerconnect
(iPOINT), as a testbed project for the NSF ERC also
produced patents that have been used in commercial
optical networks. We were fortunate to be able
to technology-transfer new design methods and software
tools to industry. ZTI was a fabless memory design
startup company cofounded with one of my former
graduate students who has worked on leakage
current issues in deep submicron CMOS circuits in
late 1990s. By using patented circuit techniques for
leakage prevention, ZTI has produced CMOS SRAM
chips that have been popularly used in many commercial
mobile phones for several years. Later, an
SECOND QUARTER 2023
IEEE CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
5
unnamed major company that had ordered many chips
suddenly canceled the order and caused enormous financial
loss, and the business had to be halted. Perhaps,
a new business model such as providing design services
would have required much less capital and thus would
have been far less risky. Based on this experience, I have
advised founders of start-up companies to be careful
about such risks, especially in capital-intensive hardware
commercialization. However, we were grateful for
the opportunity and support received for the successful
commercialization of academic research at the forefront
technology. After so many years since obtaining patents,
we are still receiving royalty incomes annually.
Question 5: You have held so many leadership roles
such as being the first department head of foreign origin
in 110 years of the Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department at the UIUC, Dean of the Baskin
School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, the second
Chancellor of the University of California, Merced, and
the president of KAIST. Can you share how you transitioned
from a professor to a leader? How did you prepare
for these roles, develop your skills, and navigate
the challenges of leadership? What advice would you
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IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine - Q2 2023

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